Simplicity of faith

Fri­day. [Heb. 11:8, 11-16; Mark 9:33-41] The Sav­iour sets forth a child as a mod­el of faith and life. Sim­plic­i­ty of faith gives birth to sim­plic­i­ty of life; from both of these comes a mod­el mor­al sys­tem. Let phi­los­o­phiz­ing in here, and it will make dis­or­der with­in; un­der the ap­pear­ance of bet­ter ar­rang­ing af­fairs, it will throw one’s en­tire life in­to dis­or­der. Phi­los­o­phiz­ing al­ways cries, “This is not so, that is not so; let me es­tab­lish ev­ery­thing in a new way; the old is worth­less, bor­ing.” But it has nev­er yet, in any place, ar­ranged any­thing good; it on­ly throws things in­to con­fu­sion. The mind should obey what is com­mand­ed by the Lord. True, the mind is call­ed “the tsar in the head”; how­ev­er, this tsar is not giv­en leg­is­la­tive pow­er — on­ly ex­ec­u­tive pow­er. As soon as it starts mak­ing laws, it con­structs it knows not what. Mor­al, re­li­gious, world­ly, and po­lit­i­cal or­ders are thrown in­to con­fu­sion, and ev­ery­thing goes up­side down. It is a great mis­for­tune for so­ci­e­ty when the mind in it is giv­en free­dom to soar, with no re­straint by Di­vine truth! This is God’s wrath. A­bout it is said, emhide thy­self a lit­tle for a mo­ment, un­til the in­dig­na­tion pass a­way/em (Isa­iah 26:20) Dur­ing this apo­gee of men­tal self-wil­ful­ness it is best to wrap one­self in sim­plic­i­ty of faith. Just as dur­ing a storm it is bet­ter to sit at home and not step out to fight self-as­sured­ly with it, so dur­ing storm­y self-mind­ed­ness it is bet­ter not to step out in­to bat­tle with it, or to seize the weap­on of phi­los­o­phiz­ing, or re­sist it. Sim­plic­i­ty of faith is strong­er than phi­los­o­phiz­ing; clothe your­self in it, like in ar­mour, and you will with­stand.